I am an avid follower of the fabulous Hattie and her wonderful blog Free Our Kids-her year of living with a toddler (her own, I hasten to add) without spending any money on him.
If you haven’t already discovered it, check it out, it is brillo.

Hattie recently starred at the Latitude Festival running a workshop for kids, making DIY Superhero capes.
Now, what 4 year old boy wouldn’t love a superhero cape?
And the best part is, they are upcycled from an old t-shirt!
I have a stash of old t-shirts left over from making t-shirt shorts for the Dress A Girl sewing days, so I purloined one of these.
There were grand plans for some kind of elaborate super hero logo on the back, but in the end, all I could manage was a “J”.
Fortunately the little boy in question does have a name that begins with a “J”.
I also wanted to put some Velcro on the neck strap, being the H&S aficionado that I am, but despite knowing that we have a stash somewhere left over from a previous project, it is nowhere to be found.
So I enclosed a little note to the birthday boy’s mum explaining my good intentions, and for my lack of follow-through. I hope she understands.

Here is BigSmall modelling it for you all, striking his best Super-hero pose…

Not the most spectacular birthday make to finish on, especially given my lack of embellishments and safety features, but there we have it.
Will we (I) continue to make birthday presents once the year has ended?
I really think I will.
I confess that at 7pm on the night before the party, my intentions always seem vaguely ridiculous, and the temptation to hot-foot it down to the nearest supermarket and grab something off the toy shelves is strong.
But actually, when you factor in the time it would take to load up two Smalls and everything that I still seem to need to take with us on all but the shortest journey (nappies, snacks, drink, snacks etc), then drag them around a supermarket/toy shop, deal with the inevitable requests for toys I don’t want them to have, and then got them back home again, it probably is actually quicker and easier to make something.
And it is certainly cheaper.
I reckon we have probably saved ourselves in the region of £10 per small person’s birthday (hubby disputed we would have spent this much, but I reckon we would, especially after you factor in a card and wrapping paper), so have saved ourselves £100+ over the course of the year.
And that’s before family birthdays and Christmas…